the saddest lines
by closingdoors
Summary: An ultimately AU oneshot post '47 seconds' in which 'Headhunters' never happened. Because without Ethan Slaughter, perhaps they never would've found one another again. COMPLETE.


_Tonight I can write the saddest lines.  
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.  
_

* * *

_Disclaimer: _Still nope. I'm bleary-eyed as I write this because inspiration hit me just as I was falling asleep. I think Marlowe and co manage their writing time better than me._  
_

* * *

It's unfair. Totally unfair.

Beckett leans against her desk as she and Esposito discuss something he can't hear, passing files between themselves and nodding towards the murder board often.

Her beauty is unfathomable and utterly unfair.

Beneath the artificial lights of the bullpen, there are shadows in the hollows of her cheeks, glancing off the high ridge of her cheekbones. Her hazel eyes flicker with gold as they glance away from Esposito and back down to the file in her hands, long fingers tracing idle patterns against the paper as she uses the other hand to tuck a curl behind her hair, revealing the sharp edge of her jaw. He wants to kiss that jaw. And those lips – soft and pink and ripe. Wants to kiss her lips and her jaw and her collarbones and every inch of her skin until there's nothing left untouched.

She catches him watching her and gives him a small smile once Esposito heads back to his own desk with a new objective.

Beckett sits beside him in her seat and blushes – that pink hue so _adorable _on her. And he wants to say _what I wrote about you in the Nikki Heat dedication is true. _He wants to say _I mean every word I've ever said. _He wants to say _why are you pretending you haven't heard the most important ones of them all?_

Instead, he says, "I think I'm gonna head home. Spend some time with Alexis."

He watches her shoulders deflate infinitesimally, her smile just a twitch of her lips.

"Okay. I'll call you if anything new comes up."

"Uh – actually, don't."

Her eyes snap up to his at that, a flare of hurt there that causes a stab of pain in his chest. But, no.

She doesn't get to make him feel guilty about this.

"Is everything okay, Castle?" She asks quietly.

"Fine. Just fine. I just have – some writing. Bye, Beckett," he nods quickly, attempting to make a hasty exit.

Her face falls. He almost feels bad about it.

"Tomorrow?"

There's such desolate hope in her voice he almost wants to run back and gather her in his arms and tell her it's all going to be okay.

But he doesn't.

"Maybe, Beckett."

He can feel her eyes on him up until the moment the elevator doors close behind him, and he lets out the breath that he'd been holding all along, a sense of relief rushing over him, tingling in his bones.

As much as he loves her, it's not enough.

Time to move on.

* * *

Being away from the precinct is the singular most boring thing _ever._ Jacinda has long since flown away, so he no longer has a pretty blonde to distract him. He's even begun playing with toy dinosaurs, which is an all new low for him, especially since the _curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal _line winds up in each storyline.

There are 6 missed calls from Kate Beckett on his phone and seeing her face light up the screen each time she'd rang was too much, so he'd deleted the picture, her beautiful smiling face (that had given him too much hope for a future he was far too naïve to believe in), and settled for just a name instead.

Just a name. Just a word.

Not beautiful. Not extraordinary.

Just a name.

* * *

Spending time away from the precinct does come with its perks, he thinks. He and his daughter have quality time together before she graduates and leaves for college. On weekends they visit all the places she used to love as a kid; still loves, really. On her school evenings they have movie nights and ice cream that was far too expensive for just a couple tubs but tasted _delicious. _He learned more about the classes she'd finished, what classes she was planning to take at college, her internship with Lanie – though they'd quickly glossed over the mention of the precinct.

Later, when she is asleep and he's tidied away their blankets and placed the ice cream in the fridge and all is quiet, he's immeasurably sad once again. His mother is out, his baby bird is asleep, soon to fly from the nest. He's going to be alone.

He'd always hoped, always had this daft dream that perhaps he wouldn't be alone, it wouldn't be so quiet. That maybe the bed upstairs would remain empty once his daughter moved away but perhaps Kate Beckett would be there to fill in the gap, to make laughter echo through his home, to lie beside him in his bed at night.

Castle sits on the couch, tilts his head back. Closes his eyes.

Kate.

* * *

After the first month, he wakes to the 27th missed call from Kate Beckett and a new voicemail.

Her voice is tiny and nervous and sad when he dares listen to it hours later.

"Hey, it's me. Kate. I guess you know that, though… Uh, I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay, you haven't been here in so long – but Alexis told me you were doing just fine."

Alexis? She talks to his daughter?

"Are you ever coming back, Rick?"

There's a stretch of silence and he hears her sigh, imagines the pull of her eyebrows when she frowns, the way she does when she doesn't have the answer. It had been adorable to him, once. Now it just makes him nostalgic. But she had never been his home, so how could he miss her?

"Don't worry. Forget I said that. Just, uh… The boys miss you. Maybe you should call them… _I _miss you. Um… See you – "

She stops. Sighs.

"Goodbye, Castle."

She doesn't call back after that.

It makes things easier, he thinks. For the both of them.

* * *

"What the Hell is wrong with you, man?"

It's the first thing Esposito growls at him when he pushes through the loft door – uninvited – whirling to stand before Castle, who's bleary eyed from being awoken, still dressed in his pyjamas.

"I'm sorry?"

Esposito steps forwards, shoves his palm against his chest hard enough to make him stumble back.

Woah – wow. Okay. What?

"Hey," he says, disgruntled, "what's going on?"

"You'd _know _if you'd come _back,_" Esposito hisses, and it's the first time he's ever seen the detective so angry at him.

"Well, I'd appreciate it if you told me, what with the, you know, physical punishment."

Esposito shakes his head, looks away.

"She's been like a lost puppy for two _months, _bro. And lately, she hasn't been hidin' it all too well. And now her mom's case has come up, and she _needs _you, man. Hell, Ryan and I need you, just to drag her out of this."

His heart lurches for a moment but he's had two months without her to learn to control it. No, love is not a switch, and he cannot turn it off. But it can be managed. The wiring can be changed. He can move on.

"She doesn't need me, Esposito."

"Like _Hell _she doesn't need you," the detective hisses. "Or have four years with her taught you nothing?"

"Oh, four months have taught me a lot, Esposito," he laughs bitterly. "Trust me. She's never needed me. Not now, not ever."

Esposito takes a step back, eyes wide, disbelief written all over his face.

"What happened between you two? What the Hell could've caused this?"

Castle drags a hand across his face, shielding his eyes from the detective, his friend, for just a moment. He's just so _tired. _Tired of Kate Beckett sneaking into every crevice of his life when all he wants to do is escape her and move on. This exhaustion runs deep into his bones no matter how many times he's tried to distract himself from it.

"We missed our chance, Esposito. Or maybe we never had one to begin with, I don't know," he says wearily, watching the hope fade from the man's eyes. "It's messed up, and it can't be fixed."

"You sure about that?"

He swallows, throat tight, chest even more so.

"Yeah, 'Sito. It hurts too much and I can't make it stop. Nothing could fix that."

"Not even her?"

He stares into the man's fierce eyes. Wonders when it was he'd lost his hope, his loyalty, his fierce devotion to Kate Beckett. There is no doubt that he loves her with every inch of his heart, even now, when they have been so absent from each other.

But he doesn't want to love her anymore. He wants it to be gone.

One day it will be.

Love won't be what he feels for Kate Beckett. It will just be a word.

"Not even her," he says quietly, and watches the resignation in Esposito's eyes.

Esposito lets out a slow breath, nodding slowly. Relief floats through his body, inflating his lungs once more, as the detective reaches for the door and he knows that he's given in. Finally. He doesn't think he has an ounce of strength left within him to fight.

"You think you missed your moment," Esposito says once he opens the door, staring past Castle, "but don't you think you want to get it back?"

Castle crosses his arms across his chest. Stares past the detective, too, and tries to envision Kate's face, that smile of hers, the one that gave him hope. Only it seems off to him. He's been without her too long – without her presence, without her laughter, without any photographs to support the memories. She's already fading from him, and amidst the mind-numbing realization there is a certain capacity to heal within in. It almost makes his knees buckle out from under him.

"Call me in a couple days," he says. "To let me know if she's – if she's safe."

He's not a bad person. Panic is still clawing at his inside, knowing she's in danger. He would never be happy to let her die. But this had never been his fight. He'd been disillusioned to think so in the first place.

Esposito nods and leaves.

His knees do give out beneath him then, and he slumps against the door once he's half-laying half-sitting on the floor. All of his hopes and dreams about Kate Beckett are swirling through his veins and leaking out of him slowly.

It's beautiful. It's healing. It's cleansing.

He lets out a sob, presses his fist to his mouth.

Kate.

Just a name. Just a name. Just a name.

* * *

A few nights later, he comes home from Broadway after Alexis' graduation with his mother to find a crumpled note had been slipped under his door. There are damp patches to it, and he supposes it's from the storm outside. It'd been pretty hectic out there.

His mother moves past him to pour them both some wine while he scoops it from the floor, unfolding the flimsy thing.

_I just want you. Please come back. Please call. I'm so sorry. Whatever I did, I'm so sorry._

It's Kate's handwriting. Frenzied, rushed.

Castle lets out a slow breath, fingers tracing reverently over the ink. She'd been here. Hours or simply minutes ago, maybe. She'd been here.

He counts to ten and then folds the note, slides it into his blazer pocket. He doesn't have the heart to throw it out just yet.

* * *

He doesn't call.

* * *

Six months later she's not even a name anymore. He deletes her from his contact list, finishes the final Nikki Heat. _Frozen Heat._ His fingers ache as he presses each key that leads him towards the end – the final end.

But soon it's finished then an extra two months later it's being published, and he tucks her deteriorating note into the dedication page before he places _Frozen Heat _onto the shelf in his study, completing his collection and filing away the last part of their story forever.

His mother had been right. Love wasn't a switch he could just turn off. He couldn't decide not to love Kate Beckett. But after eight months without her and almost five years of aching pain because of her, his love simply burns his heart like a chest ache every now and then, when he passes woman in the street with curls that spill like sun over their shoulders as they carry coffee cups in their hands.

He doesn't remember the last time he bought her coffee.

No matter. He's moving on, and it's what he wanted, and he's smiling more and has begun working out. Thinking about dating again, too. He hopes she's moved on – from whatever they'd been, if she'd ever felt anything for him at all.

And even if she has, he hopes she sees the dedication anyway.

_I forgive you._

* * *

_I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.  
Love is so short, forgetting is so long._

_Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms,  
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her._

_Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer,  
and these the last verses that I write for her.  
- Tonight I Can Write, Pablo Neruda _


End file.
